BEEFALO MORE THAN OUTSTANDING BEEF
Over the past several years there has been a tremendous emphasis on the great taste and excellent health attributes of Beefalo Beef. It has been well established that Beefalo is lower in fat, cholesterol, and higher in protein than conventional Beef. Yet many forget that Beefalo offer some great benefits to the people who breed and raise them.
It's been almost 10 years since I had the privilege to meet DC "Bud" Basolo, the founder of Beefalo, have lunch with him and have some great conversation. Bud told me he wasn't exactly sure what he had when he first started developing Beefalo. He was targeting on producing a beef animal that could be raised on cheap feeds or roughage's, poorer pastures and still produce outstanding beef. In the early 1970's Bud had leased a pasture on the Sacramento River Delta (North Central California) that had a great deal of Cattails. Bud shoved a group of young steers into them, and hoped for the best. He was amazed at how well they gained weight and put a lot of beef of their frames grazing on Cattails. This is exactly what he wanted and from there their stories of how well Beefalo performed continued to be made known.
Beefalo inherited the sweat glands of the Buffalo and were heat tolerant just like Brahma Cattle. Beefalo have a dense hair coat with more hairs per square inch than regular cattle and can tolerate colder climate like the Buffalo. Their Calves will graze at their mother's size contributing to their rapid rate of gain. They were more disease resistant than regular cattle, and like Bud Basolo, I was impressed with Beefalo being non-selective grazers and would uniformly eat rougher forages along with the better grasses in a pasture. When put in a Feedlot Beefalo will eat more hay or forages and chose to avoid, or eat little grain.
Conclusion. Beefalo should be considered not only for their ability to produce good beef, but for their Thrifty Easy keeping attributes as well. The less money spent on maintaining them, the more money is left contributing to the bottom line.
Over the past several years there has been a tremendous emphasis on the great taste and excellent health attributes of Beefalo Beef. It has been well established that Beefalo is lower in fat, cholesterol, and higher in protein than conventional Beef. Yet many forget that Beefalo offer some great benefits to the people who breed and raise them.
It's been almost 10 years since I had the privilege to meet DC "Bud" Basolo, the founder of Beefalo, have lunch with him and have some great conversation. Bud told me he wasn't exactly sure what he had when he first started developing Beefalo. He was targeting on producing a beef animal that could be raised on cheap feeds or roughage's, poorer pastures and still produce outstanding beef. In the early 1970's Bud had leased a pasture on the Sacramento River Delta (North Central California) that had a great deal of Cattails. Bud shoved a group of young steers into them, and hoped for the best. He was amazed at how well they gained weight and put a lot of beef of their frames grazing on Cattails. This is exactly what he wanted and from there their stories of how well Beefalo performed continued to be made known.
Beefalo inherited the sweat glands of the Buffalo and were heat tolerant just like Brahma Cattle. Beefalo have a dense hair coat with more hairs per square inch than regular cattle and can tolerate colder climate like the Buffalo. Their Calves will graze at their mother's size contributing to their rapid rate of gain. They were more disease resistant than regular cattle, and like Bud Basolo, I was impressed with Beefalo being non-selective grazers and would uniformly eat rougher forages along with the better grasses in a pasture. When put in a Feedlot Beefalo will eat more hay or forages and chose to avoid, or eat little grain.
Conclusion. Beefalo should be considered not only for their ability to produce good beef, but for their Thrifty Easy keeping attributes as well. The less money spent on maintaining them, the more money is left contributing to the bottom line.
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